


Unmasked

by miracuclass



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng Fluff, Adrinette, Alya Césaire Ships It, Bee Chloé Bourgeois, Bee Miraculous, Chatbug - Freeform, F/M, Fox Alya Césaire, Fox Miraculous, Identity Reveal, Kwamis - Freeform, LadyNoir - Freeform, Marinette Dupain-Cheng Knows, Marinette-centric, Masks, Miraculous Holder Alya Césaire, Miraculous Holder Chloé Bourgeois, Miraculous Ladybug Love Square, New Miraculous Holders, POV Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Phantom - Freeform, Phantom of the Opera - Freeform, Post-Reveal Adrien Agreste/Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Queen Bee, Season 2 spoilers, Spoilers, Turtle Miraculous, Volpina Alya Césaire, adrienette - Freeform, chlobee, ladrien, ml season 2 spoilers, season two spoilers, volpina - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 18:32:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13440732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miracuclass/pseuds/miracuclass
Summary: During a production of "The Phantom of the Opera", Marinette is faced with an unmasking akuma who might cause a little bit of trouble for her and Chat Noir...





	Unmasked

It started with, of all things, a field trip.

They were right in the middle of their theatre unit in Mme. Bustier’s class, and so when Mme. Bustier found out that a small local theatre right near the school was putting on Le Fantôme de l'Opéra, well, they just had to go see it.

Marinette loved Le Fantôme de l'Opéra from the very first scene. It had only recently made its debut in France as a play, despite the original novel being of French origins. She had read the novel once in school a few years ago. As for the play, it was a fabulous show right from the beginning, and by the third song, she was daydreaming about making the costumes. Just as she was wondering how long Christine’s intricate dress would take to stitch and embroider, there was a frightened childish wail from a few rows behind her.

Marinette refocused on the play. Christine, who was, of course, the main character, was singing to a mirror. In the mirror- which had been blank only a few moments before- there was now a ghostly, half-masked face. The Phantom had first appeared onstage, and it seemed that the child in the row three behind her didn’t care much for the masked figure.

As the still-masked Phantom led Christine into his subterranean lair, the child’s wails only grew louder and louder. Marinette exchanged a half-sympathetic look, half-wince with Alya, who of course had chosen to sit right beside her.

“Ugh!” she heard Chloe exclaim loudly from down the row where she was seated next to Adrien. She had been cuddled up next to him since the lights went down, but now she was seated upright in her seat, glaring back at the sobbing toddler. “Can’t somebody shut him up? This is why we should have gone to the Palais Garnier. It’s the proper setting anyway.”

Mme. Bustier shushed her.

“The Palais Garnier doesn’t even put on plays,” Alya whispered in Marinette’s ear.

Marinette was about to reply quietly when a piercing scream split the air. This was no child’s scream, but the voice of a young woman. It was followed by the toddler screaming again, only this time there was a new, tonal quality to it.

Marinette spun around in her chair to look. Alya already had her phone out, so she honestly should’ve expected this: the toddler was flying.

Specifically, the toddler was clothed in a white jumpsuit with a lime-green mask emblazoned on the front. He wore a matching Phantom-style mask that covered the right half of his face. On his feet were dark red-and-green shoes that were flashing with red and green lights. And, oh yeah, he was hovering a few meters off the ground, far above them, glaring down at the stage with a fury.

Panicked, audience members all around Marinette began to scramble for the theatre doors, trying to escape. But the newly akumatized child wasn’t interested in them- he floated towards the stage, hands outstretched.

The actors onstage didn’t notice until it was too late. With a delicate cry, the actress playing Christine fainted, swooning backwards into the actor playing the Phantom. Marinette expected him to catch her, but he was frozen in place and the actress slumped to the floor.

Mme. Bustier was behind Marinette and Alya then. “Come on, girls, let’s go!”

Marinette looked away from the stage for an instant- the rest of the class had already fled. Only she and Alya were left, and of course Alya had her phone out, live-streaming the akuma to the Ladyblog as the toddler reached out his hand and touched the Phantom on the shoulder.

Instantly, the Phantom’s white mask vanished.

Pleased, the toddler gave a happy giggle, and then cried, “No more masks!”

“That’s his objective?” Alya whispered to Marinette. “No more masks?”

Just then, a fed-up Mme. Bustier grabbed the two girls’ hands and practically dragged them into the crush of people heading for the doors. “We can’t stay here! There is an  _akuma!_ ”

Marinette glanced down into her little pink purse. It was cracked open, and Tikki was peeking out with wide blue eyes.

_Hide, Tikki!_  Marinette mouthed, and Tikki vanished, the purse snapping shut. Marinette glanced around- there were a lot of people, so could she slip unnoticed into the crowd and find an empty place in which to transform? No, she couldn’t- Mme. Bustier’s grip on her hand was like iron. She would just have to wait.

She hoped Chat Noir would show up soon.

Alya was furiously trying to hold her phone and type on it at the same time with just one hand. “I’m putting out a call to Ladybug and Chat Noir,” she informed Marinette. “If we’re still here when Ladybug shows up, this will have been the best field trip  _ever!_ ”

The trio made it through the doors safely, although Marinette was sure she’d stepped on at least three feet, and met up with the rest of the class outside. Marinette scanned the group of huddled teenagers for banana-blonde hair. Where was Adrien? Had he made it?

There was Rose’s sweet blonde mop. There was Chloe’s yellow ponytail. Marinette spotted Mylene’s colorful locks and the bleached streaks in Kim’s hair… but no Adrien.

“Where’s Adrien?” she gasped to Alya.

Chloe must have overheard. She flipped her ponytail nearly into Marinette’s face, her face looking like she had sucked on a lemon. “Adrikins said he had to go,” she said sourly. “I wanted him to stay here, to  _protect_  me, but he wouldn’t!”

“Forget Adrien protecting you,” Alya shot back. “ _Ladybug_  will be here soon, I’m sure of it!”

Chloe’s face brightened. “Ladybug! That’s right, I’m  _sure_  she will show up to protect me. After all, I  _am_ -”

Mme. Bustier broke in. “Chloe, where did you say Adrien was?”

“He just  _left_ ,” Chloe snapped.

“I can go find him,” Marinette volunteered. If she could get away from the group, she could transform- and  _then_  she would find Adrien, and  _then_  she would defeat the new akuma. All while trying to avoid Chloe.

“I’ll go with her so she doesn’t get lost!” Alya said brightly, grabbing Marinette’s arm.

Marinette winced. If Alya went with her to find Adrien, she wouldn’t be able to get away and transform.

Mme. Bustier looked conflicted for a second, but then she nodded. Turning to the rest of the class, she bade them go home. When she turned around, Marinette and Alya had already vanished into the crowd.

Alya squeezed Marinette’s arm. “You can find Adrien on your own, right? I  _really_  want to stream this for the Ladyblog!”

Relieved, Marinette broke into a smile. “Yes! I mean, of course I can. Be carefu-”

Alya was already gone.

Marinette raced around the corner of the opera house and hid behind a giant circular news poster advertising an up-and-coming Jagged Stone concert. She clicked open her purse.

Tikki flew out. “What is it with Hawkmoth akumatizing children lately?” she asked worriedly in her high-pitched, squeaky voice.

“I know!” Marinette sighed. “This is going to be… fun.”

“Are you ready?”

Marinette straightened. “Yes. Tikki, transform me!”

A minute later, she was vaulting over the top of the poster, clad in red and black.

\---

There was a back door into the theatre, and luckily it was unlocked. Marinette slipped in, the door shutting with a soft  _click_  behind her. Backstage it was pitch-black. Gasping, she stumbled for a second, tripping right into a curtain. With a sigh of relief, she took the curtain into her hands and began feeling her way left. Sooner or later she’d find a light source.

She felt a hand fall lightly on her shoulder.

Marinette freaked out. Tensing, she grabbed the arm attached to the hand and flipped it- and the body attached to it- over her. Her attacker shouted, surprised, as she slammed him/her to the ground and put a knee on his/her chest. She squinted, trying to make out details of the person’s face.

The attacker groaned. Then there was the flick of a light, and one of the attacker’s hands- black-gloved, clawed hands- was holding a flashlight, pointing up towards his face. His pale, black-masked face, grinning like the cat that ate the canary.

“Miss me, Bugaboo?”

Marinette climbed off of Chat Noir. “Chat! About time you showed up.”

“About time?” he joked. “I’ve been here for fifteen minutes!”

Helping her partner up, Marinette cleared her throat. “The akuma is a toddler this time. Based on what I’ve seen, he’s trying to get rid of all the masks he can find. That means that he’ll come after us whether Hawkmoth wants him to or not. But we have to be careful- I don’t want to hurt a  _toddler_.”

Chat nodded solemnly. “Of course, that would be a  _child’s_  mistake.”

Marinette took the flashlight from him. He must have found it somewhere backstage. Shining it around, she was suddenly dizzyingly glad she had stuck to the curtain- there was junk all over the floor. Nails, cloth, boxes, you name it. She shined it down to the edge of the curtain and began leading Chat by the wrist towards it.

“But getting his akuma should be  _child’s_  play,” Chat continued behind her. She ignored him.

Around the curtain there was a door with a thin silver of light shining from under it. As Chat opened the door for her, bowing deeply, Marinette switched off the flashlight.

They were in the wings of the stage. The toddler akuma was wrecking the set, alone. It appeared that the actors playing the Phantom and Christine had fled. The theatre was empty, and other than the akuma’s childish yells, it was completely silent.

Marinette squeezed Chat’s arm, then pointed at the other side of the stage. Even without the flashlight, Chat Noir could see in the dark- he would have no problem making it into the other wings through the pitch-black backstage, and then they could approach the akuma in a two-pronged advance.

_Where’s the akuma?_  Chat mouthed to her.

Marinette shrugged. She scanned the toddler again, from head to toe, looking for the telltale dark purple that signified an akumatized object- or looking for something that seemed magical and powerful. She found nothing of the second, so she focused in on the first: purple, purple, purple.

Green mask. No purple.

White-and-green jumpsuit. No purple.

Purple cuff bracelet. No purple.

Red-and-green-

Wait!

Marinette focused in on the bracelet. It was a dark purple-and-black cuff bracelet encircling most of the toddler’s right wrist- the one he had used to vanish the Phantom’s mask.

“His bracelet!” she whispered to Chat Noir. “The akuma must be in the brac-”

The akuma turned toward them, blue eyes full of rage. He focused in on the two superheroes in the wings, red and black. Marinette had a feeling he was staring right into her soul.

“Masks!” the toddler screamed. “Masks are scary. I don’t like masks!”

Then he flew at them with a vengeance, hands outstretched.

Marinette and Chat leapt to the side, and the akuma flew right past them. Sprinting out onto the stage with her partner, Marinette eyed the toddler, who was clumsily turning himself around in midair. “Don’t let him touch you,” she called to Chat Noir. “The masks are magic, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Ladybug!!!”

Marinette could almost  _hear_  the exclamation points in the girly squeal. And oh, she knew the voice, and how she dreaded it. The door to the lobby, which had previously only been cracked, slammed open to its full capacity, and in flew a blonde blur of yellow and black. Chloe. She ran at full speed up the aisle and to the side of the stage, clinging onto the lip of the stage and gazing up at Marinette with starry blue eyes. Alya stood in the doorway, filming the entire fiasco.

Marinette waved them off. “Get out of here!” she called to the Ladybug-loving pair. “It’s too dangero-”

“Ladybug! Watch out!”

Chat Noir tackled her and the pair rolled off into the wings. The toddler hovered in midair near where Marinette had been, although- Marinette reached up and fiddled with the edges of her mask just to make sure- he hadn’t touched her. The mask was still there.

“Do you know if he touched me?” she asked quickly, glancing up into Chat Noir’s face above her. “I’d like to know if the masks would…”

Her voice died out into a small squeak.

Because on top of her, where he had landed after their roll, lay a black-clad boy with a tail and claws and a baton strapped to his lower back and no mask.

Marinette was looking into the green eyes of Adrien Agreste.

She screamed and scrambled backwards, out from under him.

“What?  _What?_ ” Adrien- no, Chat- no, Adrien- no, Chat- ugh,  _he_  exclaimed, looking down at where she huddled against the black curtain, cheeks flaming red. “Milady?”

For some reason, hearing Chat’s beloved nickname for her come out of Adrien’s lips made it all too real. The toddler akuma had somehow,  _for some reason,_  been able to get through Chat’s kwami’s magic and taken off Chat’s mask, and Chat Noir was- Adrien Agreste was- Chat Noir was A-

Nope. She still refused to believe it. Refused to believe that Alya had been right that one time, refused to believe that her handsome, sweet Adrien- that her arrogant, punny partner- were one and the same…

“It’s not real,” she said, half to herself. “You’re not-”

Chat’s hands went to his face. “Is there something on my-”

When his fingertips couldn’t find his mask, he froze.

“Ladybug,” he asked in a low voice. “Is my mask on?”

“Nnnoo,” Marinette managed to get out. Her voice was quiet and quivering, and-

The akuma was suddenly between them, his hand reaching out to touch Marinette’s shoulder. Her reflexes took over and she dove out of the way onto the stage.

The bracelet. The bracelet. She focused back in on the akuma.

“Stay in the wings, Ad- Chat,” she shouted.

“Will do, milady,” he called back, voice shaky.

“Ladybug!” Alya said loudly from the doorway, stepping fully into the theatre and mostly closing the door behind her. “Is something wrong with Chat Noir?”

“Now’s- not the- time!” Marinette yelled to her best friend, furiously dodging the toddler’s chubby fist onstage as she tried to grab the bracelet off of his wrist without being touched. “Alya, stop recording! Both of you, get out of here!”

“I can help!” Chloe said brightly, scrambling up onto the stage rather clumsily. She stood straight and tall a few feet from Marinette, hands on her hips. “Hey! You! The child! Get away from Ladybug!”

Alya too ran closer to the stage, kneeling down so she could get the best shot of the action. Marinette cast a despairing glance at the two girls, so eager to be part of the fight…

She reached for the toddler’s cuff, but he flew higher, out of her reach, towards the ceiling. Exasperated, Marinette turned briefly to wave the girls away. Instead, right as she was looking directly into Alya’s phone camera and opening her mouth to tell them she would have to forcibly get them away if they didn’t evacuate immediately, she felt the brush of tiny toddler fingertips on her back.

There was a slight tingling sensation across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, just enough to let her know that something that had previously been there had been taken away. But even without the tingling, the gasps from Chloe and Alya would’ve confirmed it.

Her mask was gone now, too.

“Marinette?!” Alya shrieked excitedly as Chloe screamed “ _Marinette Dupain-Cheng?!_ ” in a very different tone.

Marinette- for, except for the bodysuit and yo-yo, she was now exactly Marinette- focused in on Alya first. “ _Stop recording!_ ” she ordered, then glanced to Chloe. “And make sure both of you stay in here until further notice!”

They knew her identity, now, after all. She couldn’t just let them go.

The toddler looked at her, then at Chat in the wings.

He giggled and then blasted up, up, up towards the ceiling. Smashing a hole in it, he zoomed away.

Marinette dived into the wings with Adrien/Chat Noir, pointedly facing away from him.

“Is yours gone, too?” he asked gently, sounding defeated but with a slight hint of hope in his tone.

Marinette nodded slowly. He hadn’t heard Chloe and Alya both scream her name, then. Good. That was good. She wanted to hold on to her old dynamic with Chat Noir for as long as she could…

“Did they see?”

Still nodding, Marinette glanced around.  _Masks. I need masks for each of us. We need to go catch that akuma before he wrecks anything else._

_I hope Lucky Charm still works…_

She threw her yoyo into the air. “Lucky Charm!”

Minutes later, she was holding a mask. Not two masks- she tried to peel them apart, to no avail. One mask, and only one mask.

She went to plaster it onto her face, but Chat’s hand stopped her. “If Chloe and Alya saw,” Adrien’s voice said gently, “and you’ve seen my face… Ladybug. Milady. The cat’s out of the bag.”

The puns. Always, with the puns.

Marinette couldn’t help it. She burst out laughing.

Adrien looked bemused. “What?” he asked, chuckling slightly himself.

Marinette turned her face towards him, still laughing.

Adrien Agreste making cat puns.

She never thought she’d see the day.

“I…” Through laughter, and through tears, she managed to cackle out: “I never thought it would be Adrien Agreste running around France in a catsuit making cat puns and flirting with me constantly! Adrien Agreste,  _flirting!_  Flirting with  _me!_ ”

“Marinette!” he exclaimed in response.

And then, just as it had been when he thought Animan had eaten her, she was enveloped in his arms. Only, this time, she returned the hug, instead of standing there shocked.

He pulled away from her, green eyes shining down into her blue ones. “Out of everyone, I never guessed you once,” he said with a laugh. “So I suppose- when we were fighting Evillustrator- that  _urgent mission_  you had to take care of-”

“It was being Marinette!” she finished.

“ _Cute, isn’t she?_ ” he responded dryly. “Really?”

“Well, this explains how you got out of the sarcophagus when we were going up against Riposte!” Marinette realized, plastering the mask onto her face. “And- Horrificator! I  _wondered_  how you got into the school, and there wasn’t any slime by your shoe.”

“I guess we should have realized it earlier,” Adrien chuckled. “We’re pretty clueless.”

Marinette smoothed out the edges of the papery mask. “Can you still tell it’s me?”

Adrien studied her, green eyes roaming over her face. She felt herself flush hot. It was the same way she looked at Adrien every day… or at least, she hoped she looked this suave, and not like a blushing, bumbling mess. Did he feel this same way?

“I can,” he said at last, “but only because I know it’s you. Hair dark as night… bluebell eyes… wait. Waaaaait a second. Did  _you_  respond to my poem on Valentine’s Day? When Kim got akumatized? It wasn’t signed but-”

“It was me,” Marinette confirmed, glancing around. She had to focus on the task at hand: defeating the akuma. Now she had a mask, and she hoped it would hide her identity well enough, since it was magic. But what about Chat?

_The curtains. Scissors._

She hushed Adrien and listened. Faintly, she could hear two voices arguing from on the other side of the thick red curtains.

“Chloe? Alya?” she called out.

The voices quieted, and then she heard Chloe snap, “ _What?_ ”

“Are you two still ready to help?”

\---

Akumas always seemed to go to one of two places: the Louvre, or the Eiffel Tower. The toddler was no different, and Marinette and a newly-masked Adrien only had to ask two civilians before someone pointed them the way of the former. There, underneath the glass pyramid, they found the toddler vandalizing numerous priceless artworks that featured masks or half-hidden faces. He had done away with at least five or six in just one of the wings when they got to him, lured him outside with their new masks, and managed to get him to look at his reflection in the glass panes of the Louvre pyramid. The toddler then tried to vanish his own mask, and while he was preoccupied with that, Marinette managed to swoop in from above and tug the cuff right off of his wrist.

It was metal, so Chat used his Cataclysm on it, since stepping on it would most likely just bend it. The bracelet crumbled to pieces and out flapped a small, purple-and-black akuma.

Marinette took hold of her yo-yo and slid the tip of her fingers down the surface. “No more evildoing for you, little akuma,” she warned the butterfly as it tried to flap away.

The top of her yo-yo split in two and slid away, revealing a blinding white light emanating from within. Marinette spun the yo-yo and aimed it at the akuma, letting loose her throw.

“Time to de-evilize!”

It caught the akuma squarely and returned to her.

“Gotcha,” she said with satisfaction, tapping the yo-yo’s surface. It opened again to let loose the newly purified akuma. “Bye-bye, little butterfly.”

It flapped away, a speck of white in the cloudless blue sky.

Marinette turned to Chat. Her earrings beeped, as they had been for the past four minutes. “Shall we? I can activate the Miraculous Cure once we get back to the theatre.”

They saluted the clapping crowd who had gathered around them; then Marinette took out her yo-yo, Adrien his baton, and they flew away across the rooftops.

Back at the theatre, Chat found a flashlight and illuminated them both as they hid backstage. Marinette peeled off her mask and tossed it lightly into the air. “Miraculous Ladybug!” she cried, and her magical swarms of ladybugs went off to fix all of the damage that had been caused that day. A few stayed behind, enveloping Adrien’s head, and Marinette only had time to giggle before her face was covered by the tickling wings of glowing red ladybugs as well. When they had gone, she only had time to reach up and feel the edges of her normal mask secure against her face before her earrings beeped once more and her transformation fell away.

Adrien’s new “Princess Bride”-style mask was gone, and in its place was his normal one, just covering his nose and around the eyes. Marinette sighed in relief.

“Claws in, Plagg,” Adrien voiced.

A green light surrounded him, starting at the feet and working its way up to Chat’s messy hair, which turned into Adrien’s neat locks as he detransformed.

Tikki flew up to Marinette and perched on her shoulder. “I’m so glad you finally revealed your identities to each other, even if it was an accident,” she chirped in Marinette’s ear. “Holding this secret every day since you fought Dark Owl was quite the task!”

A black kwami with green eyes and a tail flew up and hovered near Adrien’s head. “I almost told you, but I didn’t think you’d believe me,” he said in a crabby voice. “Plus, Tikki’s bossy and she shushed me when I found out your precious Ladybug was Marinette. Now. Do you have any Camembert?”

This last question was directed at Marinette, who shrugged. “Camembert? No. Tikki eats cookies.”

She pulled one out of the bag she had slung over her shoulder and offered it to her kwami- chocolate chip, Tikki’s favorite. Tikki accepted it and began to munch happily.

Adrien sighed and pulled a slice of stinking cheese seemingly from nowhere. Marinette wrinkled her nose- her parents worked with Camembert sometimes in the bakery, and she’d never been too fond of the smell- but Adrien’s kwami swooped in on it and swallowed the small triangular slice whole.

“Plagg, you should have told me!” Adrien berated him. “Why wouldn’t I believe you? Marinette’s amazing and a great friend.”

There it was again, that  _friend_  word. Marinette slumped and looked away. “And she replied to my poem, so now she’s not only my friend, but my Valentine,” Adrien said cheekily with a very Chat-like wink.

Plagg turned to Marinette with wide-open eyes. “Wait, that was you?”

Marinette.exe had stopped working. She blinked at Plagg and Adrien, unable to form a coherent thought or word. “I- ah- um- er- um- I,” she stammered out. “I, you, you’re, you’re okay with that?”

“He’s been in love with Ladybug since you first met,” Plagg said dryly. “I think he’s a little bit more than  _okay_  right now.”

“We should probably go talk to Chloe and Alya,” Tikki suggested. “I hope they’re still here! And if they are, we should take them to Master Fu.”

“That old fart?” Plagg groaned. “Heeeeere we go again.”

“Who’s Master Fu?” Adrien asked.

Tikki just giggled. “You’ll see!”

Chloe and Alya were still in the otherwise-deserted theatre, sitting at opposite ends of the front row. Both were on their phones. Chloe looked up as Marinette appeared alone on the stage (Adrien was hiding in the wings), then harrumphed and looked down at her phone. Alya, on the other hand, immediately clambered up onto the stage and ran to hug Marinette tightly.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” she clamored. “My best friend is Ladybug. Oh my  _God_ , I’m best friends with a superhero. I’ve been thinking back on every appearance Ladybug has made and- when I got that private interview with Ladybug and you claimed to have set that all up, of  _course_  you did, you just turned into Ladybug and met me on the stage! And I  _totally_  called it, that  _was_  your history textbook- and thank you  _so much_  for saving me from Prime Queen, and-”

Chloe was typing on her phone. She appeared to be texting, or tweeting, or something of the sort. Marinette stopped Alya’s rant for a second and looked down at Chloe. “She hasn’t put the news on any social media, right?”

“No, I made sure of that,” Alya assured her.

“I wouldn’t be spreading false rumors anyway,” Chloe snipped from the audience. “There’s  _no way_  that  _Marinette Dupain-Cheng_  is Ladybug.”

Alya folded her arms and reminded the blonde, “You literally helped me make Chat Noir’s mask for her earlier, and then you saw Chat Noir wearing the mask we made on that news feed you were watching not five minutes ago. There’s no way you’re just going to  _ignore_  the fact that Ladybug- your  _idol_ \- is in our  _class_.”

Chloe put her phone away and stood up. She wouldn’t look directly at Alya, but she glared at Marinette. “Fine. Whatever. You’re Ladybug,” she grumbled. “But I still don’t like you at all. Not one bit.”

“Doubtful,” Alya muttered.

“And until you provide  _concrete_  proof, I won’t fully believe it,” Chloe continued on, still ignoring Alya. “Next you’ll be telling me that Kim or Ivan or- hah, you’ll be telling me that  _Adrikins_  is Chat Noir!”

Adrien crept out onto the stage. Marinette waved at him to go back- she hadn’t signaled for him to come out and reveal himself to the girls yet- but it was too late. Alya was silent for a second, and then she screamed with laughter.

“No way,” she guffawed. “No.  _Way!_ ”

Chloe spotted him next and her jaw fell open. “Adrikins!” she whimpered.

Adrien held out his hands. “Chloe, I can explain-”

Chloe put her hands on her hips. “You’ve  _got_  to be kidding me!” she complained loudly. “My  _favorite person_  in the  _whole wide world_ , Adrikins, is my  _least_  favorite superhero- and my  _least favorite_  person in the world, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, is my  _favorite_  superhero!”

Alya was still howling with laughter. “You’re pranking me!” she shrieked. “Chat Noir’s in love with Ladybug, who is Marinette, and Marinette’s in love with Adrien, who is Chat Noir!  _Please_  tell me you kissed him already.”

Adrien glanced at Marinette. “You’re in love with me?”

“Now is  _not_  the time,” she said, blushing bright red.

“You totally are,” Alya confirmed. “You’re blushing!”

Tikki flew to Marinette from where she had been hiding with Adrien and Plagg in the wings, catching up with her fellow kwami. She cleared her tiny throat. “Ahem,” she reminded Marinette. “Master Fu?”

“Right,” Marinette said, nodding at the two girls. “Um. You two know our identities now, so- there’s someone who needs to know. Both of you need to come with us.”

Chloe was staring at Tikki and pointing. “What,” she asked with pause, “is  _that?_  I swear, if it’s a giant bug, I’m going to scream.”

Adrien climbed off the stage and put his hand on Chloe’s shoulder. “Come on, Chloe,” he told her. “I’ll explain on the way.”

\---

Master Fu paced up and down his room, Wayzz watching him with concern from where he and Tikki were having tea on the currently-unused gramophone nearby. (Plagg, who wasn’t one for tea, was sitting in the horn, eating another piece of cheese that Adrien had provided for him.) He eyed Alya and Chloe, who were standing with Marinette and Adrien in the center of the room.

“Let us go over the story once more,” he said calmly. “During the fight against the akuma today, the akuma managed to make both of your masks disappear.”

“Right,” Marinette confirmed.

“And Alya and Chloe saw, quite clearly, your identity.”

Marinette nodded.

“They then proceeded to find scissors and cut one of the stage’s curtains into a decent mask for Chat Noir.”

“It was a pretty good mask,” Adrien volunteered.

“I found the scissors,” Alya contributed.

Marinette nodded. “She’s pretty good at finding things, even when they’re hidden.”

“Like your identity,” Alya murmured to her. Marinette elbowed her in the side, and she shut up.

“I did most of the cutting,” bragged Chloe.

Master Fu nodded. “Then they proceeded to wait for you, as you instructed, and keep your identity a secret.”

Alya cleared her throat and said, “I wasn’t streaming to the Ladyblog, just recording so I could post it later. And I deleted the video while Marinette and Adrien were fighting the akuma at the Louvre.”

“Wonderful job,” Master Fu complimented her. Then he turned to Marinette and Adrien. “Ladybug, Chat Noir, the fact that Hawkmoth was able to make your masks disappear with his akuma’s powers concerns me. Back when this young lady-” he gestured to Alya- “was akumatized, he was not able to even detach Ladybug’s mask from her skin, but now he has, and your identities were revealed to these two. And you are positive that the akuma did not see either of your faces? Hawkmoth can see through his akumas’ eyes, remember.”

“We’re sure,” Marinette reassured him.

Master Fu stopped pacing and looked Marinette straight in the eyes. “I am still concerned. This means that he is growing more powerful and it may become even more difficult to defeat him with just the two of you.”

“What are you saying?” asked Adrien.

Master Fu turned to the gramophone and motioned for the three kwamis to move. They did, Tikki and Wayzz carrying the tea set with them.

He put his thumbs to the dragons’ eyes and pressed them, which made the keypad come up. He tapped in the same three-button code, and the top of the gramophone turned and moved to the side, allowing the Miraculous box to rise to the top. Marinette had seen this before, but it was a surprise to Adrien, Alya, and Chloe, who all gasped in surprise.

“Hey, I know that pattern,” said Adrien, squinting at the top of the box. “Plagg and my ring came in a little box with that pattern on top.”

Marinette smiled. “I told you- that was all Master Fu.”

Adrien looked puzzled. “How did you manage to get it in my room?”

Master Fu winked as he took the box into his hands. “I’m very spry for one hundred and eighty-six.”

Chloe looked him up and down. “You don’t look that old.”

Adrien was staring at the box. “Does this mean you have more Miraculouses?”

In answer, Master Fu only opened the box. Inside, just as it had been when Marinette visited him before Gabriel Agreste was akumatized, there were seven spaces for seven Miraculouses- but there were only two pieces of jewelry inside, the fox-tail necklace on the orange space and the bumblebee comb on the yellow space.

“If it’s going to get harder to defeat Hawkmoth,” Marinette realized, looking down at the Miraculouses, “you’re saying we’re going to need help.”

“Two more Miraculouses,” Master Fu confirmed. “Two more superheroes. And now, we have two perfect candidates- two young women who have shown their willingness to help protect Paris many times, and who now know your identities anyway.”

Alya gasped slightly. When Marinette looked at her, her hazel eyes were starry and shining.

Master Fu turned to Chloe first. “First, a girl with a sharp tongue and stinging wit, who seems to prefer the color yellow over all others, and who gets along well with the Ladybug. I bestow upon you the Bee Miraculous.”

When Chloe took the comb into her hands, it burst into blazing yellow light, and from the light formed a bee kwami who stretched and yawned, then focused in on Chloe.

“This is Pollen, your kwami,” Master Fu introduced. Then he turned to Alya. “And for a girl good at finding hidden things, who has a bright mind and engaging personality- I think you make a perfect fit for the Fox Miraculous, and with it, your kwami Trixx.”

Alya reached toward the necklace with reverence.

“Go on, take it,” Master Fu encouraged her; Alya scooped the necklace up into her fingers, where it lit up with orange light that solidified into a fox kwami with purple eyes.

Master Fu stood back and eyed the four teenagers. “This should be enough for now, but I trust you four to tell me if you are struggling, and I will give up the Turtle Miraculous if necessary. For now, however…”

He clasped his hands behind his back.

“Ladybug. Chat Noir. Rena Rouge. Queen Bee.”

Adrien reached behind Chloe and took Marinette’s hand. She looked up at him, surprised, but squeezed it. He smiled down at her and squeezed back.

“You are the protectors of Paris. Serve your city well.”


End file.
